Sky adjusting his hairdo. You gotta impress those backcountry hotties!
January 18-19, 2004
Paul Belitz, Sky Sjue, Dave Coleman
We had a three day weekend due to MLK day, and there had been plenty of snow lately. I had traded several emails with Dave over the course of the week, but by Saturday evening nothing had been confirmed. I was lifted out of my Saturday-Night-No-Skiing Blues by a quick phone call from Sky suggesting that we try to repeat our summer Park Glacier trip from Mt. Baker ski area. I didn't need further encouragement.
The plan was to skin from the ski area to the Portals on Sunday, then try to climb and ski the Park Monday. There were a few sun breaks when we got to the parking lot, causing us to become unrealistically optimistic. We started skinning up the groomed slopes around 12:30. It was snowing, and visibility was near zero as we approached the Artist's Point parking lot. We dropped in on the steep slopes that the summer trail traverses. The weather now could be considered a whiteout. Avy debris made for some interesting skinning, but we knew that we were going in the right direction.
Before we reached the first saddle we got disoriented and managed to go in a circle, dropping down only to reconnect with our skin track after backtracking a mile. This time we kept going and made it to the saddle, only to drop down in the wrong direction and we made another loop. By now it was starting to get dark, and the wind was picking up. It was still snowing. Sky had gotten his bearings and led us up a steep slope that made for some skinning flailure for me. Luckily I managed to avoid falling off and taking Dave with me. The steep slope put us on top of the ridge, heading in the right direction. Dave and I got our headlamps out; Sky had forgotten his. We quickly learned the limitions of LED lights, the already diffuse beam gets so diffused by falling snow that you can barely see your ski tips. We edged out over a steep slope, Sky in the lead. He was sidestepping down, and suddenly disappeared. Turns out he hadn't seen a roll in the slope in the dark, and consequently tumbled down the slope for a bit. Dave and I traversed a bit more and avoided the same fate.
By now we had been skiing for nearly five hours, it was dark, and stopping was beginning to sound like a good prospect. We skied down a gentle slope until we found a large snowdrift that would make for a nice snowcave. We broke out the shovels and started digging.
The snow was perfect, a few inches of powder over a hard base. It made for easy progress. Sky's plastic shovel died after a few minutes of digging, but we were OK, having two more between the three of us. After a while the cave was large enough, so we moved inside and fired up the stove. After brewing up for about an hour we were all satisfied and ready to sleep.
We had agreed that if the weather didn't improve we wouldn't go for the summit, so when Dave and I woke up at 7:30 and found that we were still socked in we decided to get back in our bags and enjoy the comforts of the cave. Sky woke up a few hours later, and we were up and packed by 10. We headed back to Artist's Point, hoping that the weather would break enought to give us some good yoyoing.
By the time we got to the top of ridge the fog had lifted and we got some nice photos of Coleman pinnacle. After a few traverses and nice slopes we got back to the saddle where we found our skin track going in a nice circle. I don't know about Sky and Dave, but I sure felt stupid.
By now the sun had broken through and we got to synthesize some vitamin D. Dave's new boots had chewed up his heels on Sunday, and he was hating life during the final skin up to the slopes above Artist's Point. Sky and I skied a few laps on a nice slope, but Dave decided to play the role of photographer and save his heels. After a few cornice jumps (Sky) and more than a few faceplants (me), we headed back to the ski area. And drove home.
The Park does not yield her pleasures easily, but we'll be back.....